Every fortnight, The Intersection narrates stories that meld culture, science and history in India. Through interviews, anecdotes and original research, Padmaparna Ghosh and Samanth Subramanian bring alive the rich breadth of human imagination and knowledge, making for a riveting listening experience. The incessant punning — well, that’s just a bonus.

46. How Our Vocabulary Evolved Over 8,000 Years

Isn’t it odd that the word for “father” in Spanish (“padre”) and Sanskrit (“pitru”) sound similar? Especially given the geographic and cultural barriers that separate the two languages? As this episode of The Intersection discovers, there’s a reason these languages can sound similar, and what’s more, there’s actually a way to trace the pronunciations of modern words, sometimes going back 8,000 years. Tune in to know more about the granddaddy of modern Indo-European languages and how a story may have sounded thousands of years ago.

Music: Josh Woodward

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Photographs of Aakar Patel by Biswajit Dey, of Vikram Doctor by Meenakshi Doctor, of Samanth and Padma by Padmaparna Ghosh, of Anuvab Pal and Kunaal Roy Kapur by Azhar Khan, and of abandoned swim-shorts by Genesia Alves. All other pics by Unsplash.

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